Third, to seek nothing. Ordinary people, in their
perpetual ignorance, crave and form attachments to
everything, everywhere. This is called seeking.
The wise are awakened to the Truth, and choose
reason over convention; their minds are at peace
and wu-wei. All forms change with karma, all
existence is empty, hence there is nothing to be
desired. Blessing and Darkness always follow each
other. This long sojourn in the Triple Realm is
like living in a burning house; to have a body is
to suffer, how can one attain peace? Those who
understand this renounce all mundane existence,
cease desires, and stop seeking. The sutra says,
“To seek is to suffer, to seek nothing is bliss.”
It follows that to seek nothing is to truly follow
the Way. This is the practice of seeking nothing.

Attachments: To crave or desire
anything, to cling to or despise anything, to
dwell in the past or grumble about the present are
all examples of attachment.

Reason over convention: Many common
beliefs and practices are actually unwise,
senseless, or even dangerous. Sometimes the truth
is the opposite of what we believe. The wise can
see what is real even if it means going against
“conventional wisdom.”

All forms: All
forms and appearances, all phenomena are driven by
karma.

All existence is
empty: Because all existence is dependent on
conditions, there is no intrinsic, independent
identity or “self.” The perceived qualities of
objects or phenomena, whether desirable or
undesirable, are conditional, relative, and
impermanent, hence nothing is ultimately
desirable.

Blessing and Darkness:
The Maha-Pari-nirvana Sutra tells of the story of
a pair of deva sisters named Blessing and
Darkness; wherever Blessing goes, good fortune
follows; wherever Darkness goes, misfortune
follows. However, the two sisters are inseparable,
one cannot receive one sister without the other.

Triple Realm: (1)
The Realm of Desire (kāma-dhātu), where
beings of the six spheres reside. They possess
physical forms and have varying degrees of desires
for wealth, lust, fame, food, and sleep. (2) The
Realm of Form (rūpa-dhātu), attainable only
by beings who have reached one of the four
dhyāna stages (deep mental concentration
states achieved with meditation). They have finer,
uni-gender physical forms but not the desires of
the lower realm. (3) Formless Realm (arūpa-dhātu),
by more refined meditation, they are able to
eliminate physical forms and exist in various
extremely subtle consciousness states only. The
two upper realms have only devas. All beings of
the Triple Realm, regardless of their power of
meditation, are still subject to karma and rebirth
and therefore have not attained liberation.

Sojourn: In our
endless rebirths, we have taken on all different
forms of being and traveled through all of the
Triple Realm. Without enlightenment, it is a
journey without end or ultimate purpose.

Burning house:
Each life in the Triple Realm will eventually end
in death, so the world we live in is like a
burning house that will turn into ashes sooner or
later. Those who do not realize this are still
busily stuffing things into this house, instead of
thinking of ways to get out!

Body is suffering:
Birth, aging, illness, and death are all
afflictions of the body that are unavoidable as
long as one has a physical body.

Mundane existence:
The six spheres of existence in the Triple Realm.

Stop seeking:
Seeking is defined here as the attachment to
things and phenomena, to gratify the selfish ego.
When one understands the underlying empty nature
of these things, one can have true peace of mind
and stop seeking. However, we can, out of
compassion, seek to enlighten and benefit others
without attachment to the ego.